What are the different address types?
You can enable rules to detect any of the following address types:
PO Boxes: Some couriers like FedEx or UPS cannot deliver to PO Boxes
USPS Gopost
Highway Contract Route
Private Mailboxes (PMB)
Parcel Lockers / Collect: This may be relevant if you ship to Australia
DHL Packstations: This may be relevant if you ship to Austria or Germany
Separate Packstation #: This may be relevant if you ship to Austria or Germany and your 3PL requires the values on separate fields
Missing Street Number: Enable this if you cannot ship to addresses without house numbers. Note there are many valid addresses in the UK without a street number. This option is automatically disabled if the Separate Packstation # option is enabled and "Packstation" is detected on the first address field
Missing Street Name
Extra Long Addresses: Enable this if you have character limits for the address or apartment fields. You can also adjust the threshold. This may be relevant if your 3PL has a strict character limit.
Non-Latin Characters: Enable this if your 3PL cannot process non-Latin characters. Accented characters like à, è, or ö are not allowed. Do not use this option if you ship to European addresses
Non-Latin Characters - Allow Accents: Enable this if your 3PL cannot process non-Latin characters. Accented characters like à, è, or ö are allowed.
Noncontiguous States: Enable this if you cannot ship to Alaska, Hawaii, or Puerto Rico.
US Military Addresses: Enable this if you cannot ship to military addresses.
Numeric Postal Code: Enable this if you require the postal code field to only contain numbers.
NZ Rural Addresses: Enable this if you cannot ship to rural addresses in New Zealand.
How does it work for non-Plus merchants?
Customers are prompted to specify an alternative address on the Thank You page after checkout and automatically update the shipping address on the Shopify object when an update is specified.
How does it work for Shopify Plus merchants?
Address Validator can warn users when any of the address rules are violated. You also have the option to completely block these addresses. These warnings and blocks happen on the first step of checkout where the customer specifies the shipping address.
Customers that pay with express payment methods (ie PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay) or Shopify Pay can bypass the first step of checkout, where the validation happens, and proceed with an address that violates some of your address rules. In these cases, customers are prompted to specify an alternative address on the Thank You page after checkout and automatically update the shipping address on the Shopify object when an update is specified.
Inline alerts
This is the least intrusive way to warn against certain address types. These warnings are rendered directly above the address fields on the first step of checkout when any of the rules are violated. It looks like this:
Modal alerts
These alerts appear when customers proceed through checkout with addresses that violate any of the address rules. They look like this:
The customer has the option to proceed despite the warnings by clicking on the Ignore alerts button. This button can be customized on the Address Rules tab → Customizations box → Proceed button label on modal alert
Blocks
This prevents customers from proceeding with an address that violates any of the address rules and looks like this:
The customer does not have the option to proceed, effectively preventing the order from being created.
How to warn and block orders violating address rules
There are three options to deal with orders violating address rules:
Mode | Inline Alerts | Modal Alerts | Block Orders |
Loose | ✓ |
|
|
Medium | ✓ | ✓ |
|
Strict | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
You can select the desired mode on the Validation ruless tab → Customizations box.
